At that time the Lord said to Joshua,
“Make flint knives and circumcise
the sons of Israel a second time.”
(Joshua 5:2)

Was Israel disobedient in its failure to circumcise every male born in the wilderness? The Lord never chastised them for this. If this lapse in the practice of circumcision was in the plan of God, what was the purpose of that plan? The example which first comes to mind is the circumcision of the firstborn son of Moses in Exodus 4:24-26.

This post has been slain and resurrected for inclusion in my 2015 book of essays, Inquietude.

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“Once prosperous (gold), we forgot God and dismantled marriage (girls) and then relied upon military power rather than God’s protection to maintain peace with our enemies (guns).”

In Deuteronomy 17:14-20, Moses gave Israel three laws for her future kings. As moderns who wrongly assume the Bible is merely “propositional truth,” we not only fail to see these three laws as a continuum, and thus fail to identify them in Bible history, we also fail to interpret contemporary history in their brilliant “triune” light.

As expected, the laws themselves follow the Covenant pattern (precisely the same patterns we have been observing in Galatians), and are thus a microcosm of the entire book:

TRANSCENDENCE

Creation (Genesis – Ark of the Covenant)

This first stanza predicts the pattern of events to come, and they are “sacrificial architecture.” However, Israel was not yet humble, not yet ready for kingdom. Their sin was the same sin as that of Adam. They saw kingdom (equality with God, Phil. 2:6-7) as something to be grasped, not something to be received as a gift after being qualified through humble obedience.

The symmetry between the gift of the Land from God in line two and the king in line 6 shows that even the king was to be a gift from God, His legal representative, His “image,” authorized to carry out judgments from His great white (ivory) throne.

HIERARCHY

Division (Exodus – Veil/Circumcision)

Just as the Laws concerning Israel’s kings were decreed by God, so the act of choosing a blameless king (Hierarchy) would follow the process of sacrifice. The king would be set apart from his brothers (as a substitute/mediator) just as Israel was set apart from the nations. We can see the Ethical/Social/Physical nature of the world here as Seed/Flesh/Skin: Christ/Israel/Gentiles. Israel was a skinned sacrifice, a “peeled fruit” which carried the seed. If the king was a Gentile, there would be no Covenant Succession. This goes beyond the circumcision of the flesh to the circumcision of the heart (Leviticus 26:41). Saul was rejected because he acted like an uncircumcised Gentile king, an authority unto himself.

Notice that the king was the centre of stanza 1 as the source of Law (Day 4), but in stanza 2 the command of the Lord is at the centre. And there is no line 7, no Succession. Israel’s problem was kings who did not act like brothers, but who behaved like Pharaoh, one who did not know Joseph, Israel’s brother. This brings us to…

ETHICS

Ascension (Leviticus – Bronze Altar)

The people were not to return to Israel Ethically (in their hearts, desiring a golden calf), Socially (through intermarriage with idolaters), or Physically (which was included as part of the curses in Deuteronomy 28:68, fulfilled under Titus in AD70):

And the Lord will bring you back in ships to Egypt, a journey that I promised that you should never make again; and there you shall offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer.”

Israel’s destiny was to “serve the nations” as priests (as in The Feast of Booths), not as slaves to their gods (the Book of Judges).

This explains why Egypt appears at the “Deuteronomy” step in this legal stanza, representing both the “swarms” of Day 5 and the plagues upon Pharaoh. The horses at Conquest match the ones at Division. For Joshua, they were not the chariots of Pharaoh but the chariots of the Captain of the Lords hosts.

Ascension has two stanzas, the second one presenting the Covenant scroll, although here it is not sevenfold but fivefold, which means it is not an inheritance as it is in Revelation 5, but a stone tablet.

(Leviticus – Table of Facebread)

What is interesting is that when we get to this point in the Revelation, Jesus opens His inheritance scroll to knock off Pharaoh (Herod) and claim the nations, and the four “Spirit horses” of the Gospel ride out! By chapter 19, He has multiplied horses, but they are not Egyptian ones. They are the saints as the Lord’s hosts, no longer angelic but glorified men.

Interestingly the “return” at the Levitical step of the Bronze Altar is still at the Levitical step here, which reflects the relationship between the fivefold pattern of Moses and the sevenfold pattern of Israel (see these charts from Bible Matrix II: The Covenant Key for more on that. It’s amazing).

Testing (Numbers – Lampstand)

Well, that covers the “guns,” now we get to the girls and the gold. I had expected the “Guns, Girls and Gold” to be the threefold Ethics in this cycle but the horses have been connected to the Conquest of the Land, borders which God would protect. If Israel was faithful, God would keep the nations at bay and she would have no need of horses. If she was unfaithful, God would first allow the Land to be invaded, and finally the City and then the Temple destroyed.

Women and gold appear at the centre for typological reasons. Gold and fire (desire) are represented by the Lampstand. The gold represents the godly king, the Adam (who is wiser than a bronze “earthy” serpent because he is holy) and the fire his legal love for the Woman. The book of Israel’s harlotry is Numbers, the book of Testing by serpents and a serpentine king, whose false prophet caused Israel to commit adultery with idolaters.

This fivefold stanza follows the Covenant pattern, with the Transcendent Law at the beginning, an uncircumcised heart at Hierarchy, a deceived heart at Ethics, plunder (a Covenant blessing) allowed to become a plague (a Covenant curse) at Sanctions, becoming a false inheritance of earthly riches at Succession.

The word “multiply” is used repeatedly, and true “multiplication” is not supposed to come until Maturity, from the hand of God. The multiplication of guns, girls and gold (symbols all sourced in Adam’s theft of kingdom from God’s right hand) is a form of sorcery. It is an attempt to gain God’s blessings without prior obedience. That is, to gain success without following God’s directions. This is where the glorious “swarms” of Day 5 become locusts who eat the Pentecostal harvest, and the clouds of incense become clouds of sulphur.

It is interesting that these five lines also echo the architectural progression of the Ten Words (above, beside, below):

How beautiful is that? Silver always seems to turn up at that point. It is the point where the Bride is either redeemed or sold, harking back to Adam’s failure to protect Eve, to Abraham’s purchase from Ephron for Sarah’s burial, and also Achan’s theft of gold, silver and a robe.

Maturity (Deuteronomy – Incense: Legal Witness)

James Jordan notes that the reason the wisdom literature is so mysterious to us is that we have not had the books of Moses and Samuel drummed into us. The kings of Israel had to copy out the Law for themselves, which I had never noticed before. For instance, Jordan sees Ecclesiastes as a mediation on the Feast of Booths. [2]

What is really excellent here is that Maturity is the “Deuteronomy” step, which means “Second Law,” because Moses repeated the Law to a new generation. It was the macrocosm of the second set of tablets given to old Israel after her golden calf sin at Sinai. Not only this but the phrase “a copy of this law” appears at the centre. The king was to be a son of God, an image of the Father. His obedience was to be a sign of the goodness of God: Israel’s God not only spoke (unlike idols), He was worthy to be obeyed.

I love the fact that Maturity concerns “legal witness,” and here the king shows his submission to God through his submission to Levitical priests. As the king watched over Israel (as her shepherd), so God watched over the king through his priestly angels “filled with eyes.”

SANCTIONS

Conquest (Joshua – Mediators)

This is the “Day 6″ of the cycle, and the theme is Adam in the Garden of God, humbling himself that he might be given kingdom, the second tree, as a gift, and therefore have God’s complete blessing to subdue the Land, instead of the partial one which Adam received. The fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom, appears at the center of numerous Covenant cycles, sometimes as “trembling.” Instead, Adam feared a lesser authority. Jordan observes that Solomon, with his interest in studying nature, “naming biology,” is presented as a greater Adam.

SUCCESSION

Glorification (Judges – Representing God to the Nations)

Finally, we come to Covenant Succession, the inheritance of the faithful man. This one is explained by my subheadings, but I would also note that the “right hand or left” is a reference to Kingdom and Priesthood, both of which are under the authority of the Prophet. It is at this step (Maturity) that Moses sits on a rock and Aaron (Priest) and Hur (of Judah: King) hold up his arms. All three were there at Ascension, but not yet united (separate elements, stoicheia). At Maturity, Priest, King and Prophet are one (a holy hybrid, the High Priest) [3]. Hence, Ehud’s faithful left-handed stabbing of Eglon was a priestly act, not a kingly one.

History:

In his downfall, Solomon actually reversed the order of the three Laws, which began a process of “de-Creation.” He amassed 666 talents of gold so that silver became commonplace (hence the symbols 666 and “wisdom” are used to signify the temple-building Herods in the Revelation), he took many idolatrous wives, and then became a trader in Egyptian horses. His fall was Ethical, Social, then Physical, as the Land was taken away.

Application:

We can apply this to modern Western Culture. Faithfulness to God brought global conquest, faithfulness in marriage, then prosperity and great wisdom (science). Once prosperous (gold), we forgot God and dismantled marriage (girls) and then relied upon military power rather than God’s protection to maintain peace with our enemies (guns).

As one commentator said today, regarding the possibility of another brutal intervention into a brutal civil war in the Middle East, instead of sending soldiers we ought to be sending missionaries. Instead of sending a swarm of sulphuric locusts, we should be sending heavenly birds and schools of fish.
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[1] See Esther and the Ten Words.
[2] See How To Read the Bible.
[3] See Bible Matrix II: The Covenant Key for more on this fascinating subject of “holy mixtures”.

Atheists love to embarrass Christians with a snide reference to the story of Elisha setting two bears upon some helpless children. What nobody, even Christians, seem to get is the “Covenant significance” of all the players in the story, harking back to Moses. The prophets were, after all, God’s “repo men.” [1]

[This post has been refined and included in Sweet Counsel: Essays to Brighten the Eyes.]

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Blood on the doorpost of the al-Qiddissin Coptic Church in Alexandria, Egypt.

“This, like many things in the Torah, sounds pretty barbaric. But, like many of the weirdest things in the Torah, we see these laws, which are personal types, played out in corporate antitypes right to the end of the Bible.”

“But if the thing is true, and evidences of virginity are not found for the young woman, then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has done a disgraceful thing in Israel, to play the harlot in her father’s house. So you shall put away the evil from among you.” (Deuteronomy 22:20-21)

In a recent debate about Greg Bahsen’s woeful review of Chilton’s The Days of Vengeance, an online friend took interpretive maximalism to task.

For instance, because doorposts could be likened to legs, Jordan claims that the passover blood smeared on doorposts corresponds to the blood of circumcision—which in turn is equivalent to the tokens of virginity from the wedding night (I am not kidding; cf. The Law of the Covenant, pp. 82-83, 252-258). [PDF]

Yes, this sounds weird, but it isn’t at all. Bahnsen didn’t have an imagination fully informed by the Bible.

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“Egypt, Judah, Edom, the people of Ammon, Moab, and all who are in the farthest corners, who dwell in the wilderness. For all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart.” -  Jeremiah 9:26

Reading through the Old Testament as a young Christian, I always felt the Bible got bogged down when the Lord started pronouncing judgments upon nations other than Israel. For starters, I hadn’t paid enough attention earlier to remember who these sovereign states were. And more to the point, wasn’t God losing the plot a bit? I mean, there were plenty of other peoples during these times which aren’t even mentioned in the Bible at all.

Unfortunately, few commentators take the Bible seriously enough to understand what is actually going on. Older books will fill you in on the background, which is certainly helpful. But the big question is Why is God doing this now?, both now in history and now in the prophet I am reading?

As usual, when the structure and context of things is understood, seemingly boring “classic” texts suddenly come to life. In the case of the prophets it is a consuming fire.

At the centre of the book of Ezekiel are judgments upon seven nations. If you’ve read anything around here, that should immediately make you suspicious.

David Chilton’s Revelation commentary observes that Revelation and Ezekiel are “level-pegged.” Although they are wildly different, they contain similar themes in a similar order. This is because they are Covenant lawsuits that use the Law of God as a sword to bring death and resurrection. A New Covenant is a New Creation, and so they also follow the structure of the Creation week.

On old, worn out Covenant is a one that has been abused. God’s people, over time, have lost the faith that allowed Him to exalt them and turned to their own methods. This always makes His kingdom into a replica of Egypt, a fertile garden that has become a place of exploitation.

Ezekiel follows the pattern of the first seven books of the Bible, which also find their origin in the Creation week.

This gives us the key to understanding the judgments upon these seven nations. At the centre of the Creation week are the rulers of heaven. In the Revelation, we have the enthroned Christ (true Adam) at the end of chapter 11, and the Church (true Eve) and the dragon (the real beast) at the beginning of 12; rulers at the centre of the book. The centre of the Bible Matrix is always Testing. It is Adam versus the serpent, Cain versus the sin crouching at the door. Both were commanded to rule. Both failed.

The book in the centre of Genesis to Judges is Numbers, and it is the key to Ezekiel 25-32. Numbers is the Law applied to Israel. It is a whole book of Pentecostal fire. Israel dies under the Law and is “resurrected” in Deuteronomy. God used Canaanite nations to test Israel.

Judgment begins at the house of God

Now, Ezekiel begins with a vision of the Lord’s chariot (Transcendence) and He delegates His authority to the prophet (Hierarchy). Ezekiel symbolically dies and is resurrected, as all prophets are before they can carry out the same pattern on God’s people.

So, from the throne, the Word moves out into the people of God. The Temple and the city are judged in a horrific, ironic Passover rite. Then, the Lord turns to the nations around Israel.

It is extremely interesting that even this list of seven nations is sort of genealogical. It begins with those who were the closest relatives to Israel and works its way outward, like a seismic shock. Not only does the list seem to follow the Creation/Tabernacle pattern, it is also chronological:

Ammon: Son of Lot – Israel was not to take their Land [1]
…..Moab: Son of Lot – Balaam caused Israel to
…..sin with Moabite women (false bride)
……….Edom: Line of Esau – false priest. Refused to feed
……….Israel in the wilderness (and Doeg the Edomite slew the
……….priests who fed David the facebread)
……………Philistia: Sons of Egypt – serpent/ruler at
……………the centre (David/Goliath)
……….Tyre: City of King Hiram – riches (Solomon)
…..Sidon: Sister of Tyre – false bride (Jezebel)
Egypt: A false rest, a false hope.

These are all Canaanite nations, although the first three became Canaanites by choice. They were false brothers, false Adams. The next three were false Eves, Gentile bride-cities that were to be brought under Covenant. Philistia, at the centre and picturing the serpent, is noticeably a different story. Philistia was iron sharpening iron, always revolving around the sword.

Historically it seems to work from the situation in the book of Judges to the end state of Solomon’s kings. The nation of the wise judge was in the same predicament.

One of the curses in Deuteronomy was that the Lord would take Israel back to Egypt in ships. This did not occur under Babylon. It did occur under Rome, when General Titus took the brightest and best of the survivors of the siege and sold them as slaves. They were transported to Egypt in ships.

It did happen figuratively here, I guess. Hiram’s city, like Solomon’s, was a “Jeru-Salem,” a city of peace. Tyre was a port of trade, never at war. Hiram, King of Tyre, was a believer who helped Solomon to build his Temple. Notice that Tyre is number 5 in the list, the place where we find plunder and/or believing Gentiles. Here, the plunder has become a plague. The precious metals and stones have corrupted the kingdom. Instead of living water flowing from Solomon’s Eden, the Garden was opened to false gods by unfaithful Adams. It was now Wormwood that flowed out into the nations. Solomon’s lust for gold indeed carried his people to Egypt in ships.

Next comes Sidon, home of Jezebel. She imported Baalism into Israel and slew God’s prophets. Her husband Ahab was Solomon’s evil twin, a temple builder. The Adam builds the house and the Eve fills it. Jezebel certainly filled those temples, but it was not with the Spirit of God.

But we have a Prince of Tyre and a King of Tyre. And the destruction pronounced upon Tyre didn’t actually come to pass. Ezekiel even notes this a few chapters later. Nebuchadnezzar beseiged Tyre but could not plunder it. So what’s the deal?

Sticks and Stones

James Jordan notes that the king, the Adam in the paradise of God, is making a mockery of the High Priest. So the Prince of Tyre is the corrupted kingdom of Israel and the King of Tyre is the corrupt priesthood. Queen Sidon is the religious system. These three people are institutions. We have the same setup in Revelation, but it is the Land Beast (666) who is the Jewish king, the False Prophet the High Priest, and the Harlot the religious system.

The deal is that the prophet is name-calling. His message is for the rulers of Israel who have imaged these Gentile nations instead of imaging the Lord of the Covenant to them. The only reason these nations are judged is because they are under the Covenant. Like the mighty men in Genesis 6, intermarriage with the sons of God has not only corrupted the true worship, it has parasitically preserved these nations from the early fruits of their sins. [2] (If you have read Bible Matrix, you will know that these mighty men were the ungodly rulers, the den of vipers, at the centre of the Adam-to-Noah pattern.)

Finally comes Egypt. Step seven is about rest, about partying with Gentiles and new rivers flowing out into the world from a faithful mountain in Eden. Ezekiel is referring to Pharaoh in an obvious sense, because Judah’s kings were looking to Egypt for shelter — a Tabernacle — from the invasions of Nebuchadnezzar.

But you might keep on saying, “We won’t stay here in Judah, and we won’t obey the LORD our God. We are going to Egypt, where there is plenty of food and no danger of war.” People of Judah, you survived when the Babylonian army attacked. Now you are planning to move to Egypt, and if you do go, this is what will happen. You are afraid of war, starvation, and disease here in Judah, but they will follow you to Egypt and kill you there. None of you will survive the disasters I will send. (Jeremiah 42:13-17 CEV)

But God would take this serpent from his river and throw him onto the Land — with all his parasitic fish. So Zeke is really calling the Davidic King a snake. He is just as bad as Pharaoh, a “king like the Gentiles.” The Covenant people would go to the pit, die the death of the uncircumcised, and the serpent’s body would be under the Covenant curse — food for the birds and the beasts.

He is like Nathan, telling a story about a “third party” sinner and then saying “Thou are the man.” The slavery and oppressive taxation would come to an end, and the Land would indeed be given Sabbath rest.

Desertward Ho

Now, the big theme of Numbers is harlotry. Numbers 5 has the (possibly) unfaithful bride drinking a cup full of sword-water. God’s Word is to be put inside her to bring judgment, to arbitrate in this matter. What is really interesting is that all these nations (and a few more) are mentioned in Jeremiah 25. God was going to make them all drink the wine of His wrath, with Nebuchadnezzar as His cupbearer. And then, of course, He would make Babylon herself drink the cup. They would all stagger and fall.

So, who was the harlot, Jezebel, in the first century? The system of Herodian worship centred in, and flowing from, Jerusalem. Jesus calls her filthy names: Egypt, Sodom, Babylon. She too would drink the cup. To back up this hypothesis, the structure of Ezekiel is exactly the same as the pattern in Jude. In Jude, it is the Judaisers who are the “intermarriers” with idolatry. They are of their father the devil, a murderer from the beginning. Their church is a false Eve. The “rulers of the earth” are more correctly the “kings of the Land.” Their carcasses, like those of their ancestors, would fall in the wilderness.

So the literary structure of Ezekiel looks like this:

Old Creation:
1 – Genesis: Vision of God
…..2 – Exodus: Jerusalem Passover
……….3 – Leviticus: Priesthood torn down
……………4 – Numbers:
……………….1 – Ammon
………………….2 – Moab
……………0……….3 – Edom
……………0………….:4 – Philistia
……………0……….5 – Tyre
………………….6 – Sidon
………………7 – Egypt (serpent killed)

New Creation:
……….5 – Deuteronomy: Israel-army next generation
…..6 – Joshua: Land reconquered (Mordecai and Esther)
7 – Judges: Restoration Temple: mediatorial nation

Just like the New Testament, God’s work is Jew – Gentile – Jew. His judgment begins at His house, works outward, then back in again. It builds a new house out of both Jew and Gentile. In the case of Ezekiel, it was a Temple that covered the entire empire, a building made of living stones.

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[1] Ammon at the start might also be significant because it was the “seed” of Solomon’s destruction. David was supposed to be fighting Ammon when he committed harlotry with Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother. He later did go out and fight and came back wearing the crown of Ammon. So, in this list, it is possibly Ammon as the “head of gold.” And the harlotry theme is continued in Balaam’s Moabite women. Ezekiel is Phinehas!
[2] See James Jordan’s The Nephilim Factor.

From James B. Jordan’s Trees and Thorns: [1]

The land and garden of Eden were watered by a spring. Why call attention to the fact that God did not send rain? Why not just mention the spring and leave off the statement about rain? The reason, I believe, is to call our minds back to Genesis 1:2-9. We find in Genesis 1:2 that there was an ocean over the original earth. Then God created the firmament, and separated the waters above from the waters below. On the third day God gathered the waters below into areas below the surface of the land.

Now we have a clear distinction between waters above the firmament, the source of rain, and waters below, which would have to come up from under the earth. Both Genesis 1:2-9 and 2:5-6 set up the distinction eschatologically; ground water comes first, and then heavenly water.

With this distinction in mind, we can begin to see rather clear associations between ground water and the first creation, which is earthy and Adamic, and heavenly water with the second creation, which is heavenly and Last Adamic: “The Spiritual [world order] is not first, but the natural [world order]; then the Spiritual [world order]. The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second Man is from heaven. As is the earthy, so also are those who are earthy; and as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly” (1 Cor. 15:46-48).

Ground water is associated with the first world, the world defiled by sin. Originally the land of promise centered on the “circle of the Jordan,” which “was well watered everywhere—before Yahweh destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah—like the garden of Yahweh, like the land of Egypt as you go to Zoar” (Gen. 13:10). This Edenic spot was chosen by Lot, who went for the obvious blessing of ground water—so much more reliable than rain, which must be prayed for. Notice that Gen. 13:10 interjects the statement that God would soon destroy this area. Why is this stuck in here? I believe it is to point to the fact that ground water is not going to be the place of salvation. The waters below, the original garden of Eden, cannot be recovered. We shall have to move forward to the eschatological waters above and the heavenly Jerusalem.

Just so, Moses contrasts the old land of Egypt, watered from the ground, with the promised land, which is watered by rain: “For the land, into which you are entering to possess it, is not like the land of Egypt from which you came, where you used to sow your seed and water it with your foot like a vegetable garden. But the land … drinks water from heaven’s rain” (Dt. 11:10-11). Moses quotes God’s promise, “I will give the rain for your land in its season, the early and late rain” (Dt. 11:14).

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[1] James B. Jordan, Trees and Thorns: A Commentary on Genesis 2-4. Available from www.biblicalhorizons.com
Art: Firmament by
Lebbeus Woods, architect
Kiki Smith, artist
Henry Urbach Architecture Gallery
New York, New York

Psalm 114 is one of those weird passages of Scripture that makes you wonder if the author was high on something. Without an understanding of the significance of the place of this song among these seven Psalms, the lyrics appear to be either the overly-clever, sophomoric crypticism of an ancient Bono or the fragmented derivatory prattlings of a madman.

But we are at the centre of the seven Psalms. Psalm 114 is Testing, and so contains references to Israel’s corporate death and resurrection in the wilderness. The nation of Israel was a new Creation. In the grave of Egypt, God formed a new house in Joseph. In the furnace of slavery, He filled a new house under Moses. But Israel’s failure to enter the Land meant the process would be carried out once again. Those who left Egypt would die in the wilderness, and a later generation enter the Land.

This central Psalm, the fourth, corresponds to the book of Numbers, the fourth book, and Pentecost, the fourth festival. It concerns death under the Law, and resurrection filled with Law.

But its construction is still cryptic. And like the words of the best poets, I believe there is method to the apparent madness. I believe the entire Psalm contains a symmetry, but that there are also two matrix cycles within it.

Praise the LORD!
…..When Israel went out of Egypt,
……….The house of Jacob
……….from a people of strange language [lip?],
……………Judah became His sanctuary,
……….Israel His dominion.
…..The sea saw and fled; Jordan turned back.
The mountains skipped like rams,
The little hills like lambs.

What ails you, O sea, that you fled?
…..O Jordan, that you turned back?
……….O mountains, that you skipped like rams?
……….O little hills, like lambs?
……………Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord,
……….At the presence of the God of Jacob,
…..Who turned the rock into a pool of water,
The flint into a fountain of waters.

Psalms 114 (NKJV)

Praise the LORD!
(Creation) Transcendance of God.

When Israel went out of Egypt,
(Division) The separationof Israel, to whom authority was delegated.

The house of Jacob
from a people of strange language [lip],
(Ascension) Tabernacle (tent) reference. Also a reference to the false Tabernacle of Babel. The people were no longer of one “lip.” [1]
Firstfruits is also a microcosm of Booths. Here we have the priesthood (proto-Jew) as princely Head and the (Gentile) Nations as Body; bread and wine, Land and Sea (Day 3). This is echoed and fulfilled at the end of the Psalm, veeeeeeery cleverly.

Judah became His sanctuary,
(Testing) Judah was the kingly tribe, the Lion. This central point often refers to thrones and rulers. Numbers named so because Israel is counted and arranged in military ‘constellations’ around the throne of God.

Israel His dominion.
(Maturity) Israel corresponds chiastically to Jacob, but is the “Body” of Jacob as “Head.” It refers to the tribes as armies, the warrior bride. The use of names also shows us that the Tabernacle was only a symbol. The true house was God’s people.

The sea saw and fled; Jordan turned back.
(Conquest) The waters parted as the veil at Atonement, to allow God’s new Man to pass through, protected inside a blood-covered box. As usual, the water also refers to the Laver.

The mountains skipped like rams,
The little hills like lambs.
(Glorification) This is the main “on-drugs” verse. I checked commentaries on this, all the best ones, and they had no idea whatsoever, other than this might refer to trees on mountains blowing in the wind, or sheep-covered hills. One thing you learn from James Jordan is to ask WHAT ARE RAMS AND LAMBS FOR? They are sacrificial animals. Same goes in Daniel 8.
A symbol similar to mountains and hills skipping away is used again in the Revelation, where the world’s existing High Places fled from the new mountain of God established at Christ’s ascension. The Jewish mountains and the Gentile islands disappeared. The pagan gods stopped talking (and they did!) Once the priesthood was centralised, there was only one High Place, the place of the High Priest, the Tabernacle. Just as rams and lambs are sacrificial, mountains and hills are Altars, like Sinai. The new Altar scatters the old ones.
What does this have to do with Glorification? One symbol that applies here is certainly the mountain of God. Instead of rivers of water, here it is rivers of old blood. But the Psalm is not done yet. The Psalmist has deconstructed the old temples (death). Now he raises up a new one (resurrection).

What ails you, O sea, that you fled?
Creation – Word (here it is a question) as light on the dark waters (the Ark)

O Jordan, that you turned back?
Division – the waters divided (the Veil)

O mountains, that you skipped like rams?
Ascension – 1 – the Land formed (Bronze Altar)

O little hills, like lambs?
Ascension – 2 – the grain and fruit – the Land filled
(Table of Showbread – firstfruits lamb)

Tremble, O Land, at the presence of the Lord,
Testing – Governing lights (Lampstand – fire from heaven)

At the presence of the God of Jacob,
Maturity – swarms (Incense Altar – tribes)

These last two, knowing they refer to Christ, should bring a tear to your eye.

Who turned the rock into a pool of water,
Conquest – Mediator (the Laver). The veil of flesh opened. [2]

The flint into a fountain of waters.
Glorification – Shekinah (New Eden)
The reference to flint is beyond brilliant. This final point is Tabernacles, a party thrown at the cost of Jews for the 70 Gentile nations. Seventy bulls were sacrificed.
Flint refers to the Circumcision, the new House of God. Israel was a nation under the knife. As Peter Leithart observed, the cutting off of Abram’s flesh with a knife averted God’s cutting off all flesh with another flood. [3]

Just as old Israel died in the wilderness and a new one inherited the promises, this verse also predicts a future Israel would be cut off and die for the life of the world as Covenant Head, and the miraculous waters of baptism would flow to the nations as Covenant Body. Forming and filling, blood and water, Jew and Gentile, in one tight, crystalline verse.

At that time the LORD said to Joshua, “Make flint knives for yourself, and circumcise the sons of Israel again the second time.” Joshua 5:2

“For the Lord GOD will help Me; Therefore I will not be disgraced; Therefore I have set My face like a flint, And I know that I will not be ashamed.” Isaiah 50:7

“Like adamant stone, harder than flint, I have made your forehead; do not be afraid of them, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they are a rebellious house.” Ezekiel 3:9

But just like the Circumcision that attempted to assassinate Paul, Israel would pervert her mission into elitism. Paul refers to the Circumcision as the mutilation, prophets of Baal who cut themselves as though this justified them before their god. They bloodied their private parts but neglected the one that mattered. Unlike the Jews who believed at Pentecost, they were not cut to the heart by the words of the Christ or His Apostles. In fact, they turned their hearts into murderous knives, as their fathers had done before them. And for this, God would again destroy the House and raise up a new one. How IRONIC is this verse?…

“Yes, they made their hearts like flint, refusing to hear the law and the words which the LORD of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets. Thus great wrath came from the LORD of hosts.” Zechariah 7:12

The family of true Flintstones, the Jews who were cut to the heart, fulfilled the words of Christ:

“He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” John 7:38

In a sense, their Words became knives also, as they shared the gospel. The living Word of God is always a sharp knife. John saw the witness of the church as soldiers made out of Tabernacle:

And thus I saw the horses in the vision: those who sat on them had breastplates of fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulfur yellow; and the heads of the horses [were] like the heads of lions; and out of their mouths came fire, smoke, and brimstone. By these three [plagues] a third of mankind was killed — by the fire and the smoke and the brimstone which came out of their mouths. Revelation 9:17-18 [4]

Finally, both cycles of the Psalm combined together show a basic symmetry. Forming and filling make a New Creation.

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[1] See Confused Lip.
[2] See Walking on Water.
[3] Peter J. Leithart, Cutting Off Flesh.
[4] See Totus Christus for my exposition of these details!

“The LORD will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors, with the scab, and with the itch, from which you cannot be healed.”  Deuteronomy 28:27

The Bible matrix pattern brings out some interesting parallels. Step 5 is about a military multitude in unity after being tested under the Law of God. It is Deuteronomy. It is Trumpets. It is the swarms of fish and birds on Day 5. It is the step of plagues and plunder. It is the step where Jesus tells His disciples they will now need both swords and moneybags.

In Moses’ ministry in Egypt, his Day 5 was the plagues sent by God upon that nation. Just like Moses, the Ark made an exodus out of Eli’s Egypt and defeated Dagon in his own temple. The Philistines, being a high culture that, it seems, even the Israelites looked up to, were the only ones to link plagues and plunder in one highly artistic gesture — tumours made of gold! And, as Jordan observes, the Philistines were descendants of the Egyptians.[1]

So, the apostles in the first century pattern, witnessing to the diaspora Jews as Trumpets before the great atoning tribulation, were not only “glories” whom the rebellious Judaisers were blaspheming (“two” angelic witnesses to “Sodom” [2]). They were, in effect, to the hard-hearted Jewish vessels of destruction, Herod’s hemorrhoids.

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[1] James B. Jordan, Egypt in Biblical History. Peter Leithart notes that the word for “tumours” is also the word for “fortified cities” and there were five Philistine cities: Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, and Gath. See A Son to Me, page 59. Leithart thinks the golden mice thus symbolised their villages. I think the mice are more likely linked to the tumours as carriers of the plague. Mice swarm.
[2] See The Two Witnesses.

Day 1
So, Adam fouled the first Sabbath. He failed to be Light.

Day 2
Cain made a false exodus (with Abel as the Passover lamb) and went to “worship in the wilderness.” God marked him as a “covering.” Being “barren”, Cain built a city as a covering, but it was just like Adam’s figleaves. It was a phony firmament, a fabricated Covenant, a city built on the wrong sort of blood.

Day 3
His offspring built a counterfeit Tabernacle – in opposition to the worship at the Gate of Eden. This was a false Land, a false mountain, like Mount Gerizim became to the Samaritans. Lamech, as a false Moses, “ascended” not as a Lamb slain, but as an accuser, the incarnation of the serpent. But someone true ascended as Firstfruits: Enoch.

This brings us to Day 4. As in the Garden, and as in Israel’s wilderness, the test was harlotry.

Day 4
Satan was false “governing lights” in Eden. Due to Adam’s failure to judge the serpent as a ruler, Eve committed “harlotry.” It was unity with godlike power that bypassed death and resurrection. That is what we have in Genesis 6. Lamech ascended and sent the wrong spirit. It was not the spirit of comfort but the spirit of disobedience, an anti-Pentecost.

Adam’s divided kingdom consisted of the worship of Seth (Abel’s replacement) and the worship of Cain. This division should have brought death in the “wilderness.” Just as Jesus was divided into bread and wine and united again with greater government, Satan tried to put these two kingdoms back together without reference to death under the Law. Even though Lamech took capital punishment as a legal right, there was as yet no Phinehas with a spear to deal with the “intermarriage.” The resulting mighty men – ungodly rulers – were a greater government, for sure. They were a government of wolves, not shepherds. They were a Law unto themselves, the law of Lamech.

A similar death, the death of Israel in Babylon, finally reunited the northern and southern kingdoms as “Jews.” This was prefigured by the reformation under Josiah. The iconoclasm covered both kingdoms.

Jesus, as Josiah, “liturgically” united a divided world in his own body through death. Then He united Jew and Gentile, men and beasts, in that body.

The only way to truly leave Las Vegas, the fertile plains made barren through bloodshed, is by death. No wonder John refers to Herod’s Judah as Sodom and Egypt. We drink the cup of death willingly, as Christ did, or we drink it by coercion under God, as the Canaanite nations and Babylon did, and as the harlot of Judaism did. Either we fall down as dead men before God like the prophets, or we stagger and fall or are knocked down like the soldiers who arrested Jesus and guarded the tomb.

No one leaves Las Vegas without passing through the sanctions of the Covenant.

Day 5
The first cup brings unity, the Incense Altar, a multitude acting as one, flocks of birds and schools of fish. The second cup, unity without the death of obedience, always brings scattering. Noah, as Moses in Deuteronomy, repeats the true Law. In Noah’s day, the mighty men of “Trumpets” refused to heed his summoning call, and animal substitutes were taken instead. This Law was a cup of staggering, a rock of stumbling.

Day 6
The world passed through the Laver. As High Priest at Atonement, Noah represented the world as he passed through the veil. He was a branch from the old world to be replanted in a new earth, a Land washed clean of blood.

Day 7
“Noah” means rest. Tabernacles.

“And he called his name Noah, saying, “This one will comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD has cursed.” Genesis 5:29

Compromise makes us “strong” but brittle. It is not the strength of integrity. The world should be united, but not on the world’s terms. The dominion of Cain, the kingdom of beasts, must submit to the Covenant first. Every knee shall bow.

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See also Blood and Soil.

or Why Four Horsemen but Seven Seals?

“…the Egyptians are men, and not God; And their horses are flesh, and not spirit.”  Isaiah 31:3

One of the three laws for Israelite kings was a command against multiplying horses and chariots—especially Egyptian ones. Solomon’s horse trading was, for a nation with a miraculous escape ON FOOT, in the eyes of the Lord, just like the faithless behaviour of the Hebrews in the wilderness. It’s always better to dwell in a tent with God than in a palace with the devil. Solomon’s kingdom of chariots and oppression became a new Egypt. By the end of the era, the pigs ruled the farm.

Chariots became a symbol of the unbelief that trusts in the fleeting strength of men:

“Some trust in chariots, and some in horses; But we will remember the name of the LORD our God.” Psalms 20:7

“He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two; He burns the chariot in the fire.” Psalms 46:9

“At Your rebuke, O God of Jacob, Both the chariot and horse were cast into a dead sleep.” Psalms 76:6

The only chariots the Lord permitted were His own.

“The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of thousands; The Lord is among them as in Sinai, in the Holy Place.” Psalms 68:17 [1]

David understood that the Lord’s chariot was a fiery cloud. Fighting ON FOOT, in the power of God, David walked on the wings of the wind (Psalm 104:3). When faithful, God’s armies cross any overflowing Jordan dryshod (Isaiah 11:15). The chariot-cloud/Ark goes before them.

“And he wrote in the name of King Ahasuerus, sealed it with the king’s signet ring, and sent letters by couriers on horseback, riding on royal horses bred from swift steeds.”  Esther 8:10

Both Zechariah and Esther are books with equine imagery. Zechariah’s visions begin with the captive church as horses in “the deep.” The visions take us through the establishment of Jeremiah’s predicted “new Covenant” and end with the Lord’s chariots racing out of the Temple. As the last phase of the Covenant document, the horses are the “four rivers” of Covenant succession that carry the Word from Garden to Land to World.

The ministry of Christ ended with “rivers” flowing from His “belly.” For Jesus, the succession came when He stood on the Mount of Olives and passed the baton to His disciples. He had been given all authority, and now He was giving it to them. They became four rivers, the four horsemen of the apocalypse flowing from the Garden that would water the whole Land. This they did. [2]

But in Revelation, the four horsemen are the first four of seven seals. This is because, in the greater first century pattern, the ascension of Christ was only Firstfruits. Christ on the mountain was Moses on Sinai, and after ascending He “opened the Law” at Pentecost. The Law has seven seals (seven Lampstand lights), and the central part of Revelation shows the blessings and curses that followed in the wake of the open Law.[3]

The first century Covenant pattern also ends with Covenant succession. After the destruction of Jerusalem, Christ begins the pattern again accompanied by the ascended first century church, and the white horse is now plural. Garden, Land, World. [4]

The Lord’s couriers don’t need horses and chariots of flesh. We have beautiful feet. We walk on the wind.

“The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”  John 3:8

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[1] See Angels in the Trees – 2.
[2] See also Saved from the Green Horse.
[3] Note that the fifth seal was the summoning of the “armies” of dead saints, the Old Covenant warriors.
[4] For much more on this, listen to James Jordan’s lectures on Revelation, available from me here, and from www.wordmp3.com.